


Spilling Truths

by unrequitedexistence



Series: Define Intermittent [2]
Category: Holby City
Genre: CampWolfe, F/F, berena - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8424157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrequitedexistence/pseuds/unrequitedexistence
Summary: Prompt Number Two by the wonderful LesbiansOfInterest: We were talking and something happened. And then she said something like, “There’s going to be angst now, right?” And this happened.
Bernie returns and finds Serena at Albie's in the glorious company of perhaps way too much Shiraz.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LesbiansOfInterest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbiansOfInterest/gifts).



“ _Serena_ …”

Albie's at the end of a shift that had gone on for what had seemed like an endless eternity that had the team cursing the overly romanticized _forever_. The red phone had not stopped ringing to the point of having become the ward's silence. She could still hear it in her head.

Her back was to the door, her hands wrapped around a glass that had welcomed half a bottle in less than ten minutes. She was thirsty for something that would have her dissolve into nothingness, would wreck her into oblivion. One _final_ drop.

She needed acid; she wanted to be, to _become_ , acid, so that the bridge that kept the blonde within reach would melt under fingertips that longed for skin that had once tasted of promise.

But instead there was a whisper.

She had to postpone the sip upon which she had placed her hope for destruction, hands trembling, eyes closing.

_Ring. Please ring. For the love of everything that is sacred, ring._

She sang it like a mantra in her head, a prayer for an emergency that would drag her away, that would startle her awake from what she was painfully aware was not a dream. Even a nightmare would be a blessing at this point.

_Ring. Please ring. For the love of everything that is sacred, ring._

The phone was no longer within reach though – but her hand was and it found her shoulder.

For a moment there was comfort, _recognition_. But then there was rage, a storm building on her lower belly screaming for a kind of release that had pleasure as poison. Her digits wanted to carve their identity on her face and not between her thighs.

" _Don't_."

But the place was raucous and her word, her _plea_ , was swallowed by reckless desire that found smooth conveyance in alcohol, traveling hands with an ease that took breaths away – _are you single_ answered with _does it matter_ , _can I have your number_ with _I live right across the street_.

She sat down across from her. The woman who had left her, _abandoned_ her, in the middle of a warzone that had her suffocating in broken compromise, sat down. Her damned British reserve had her standing straight as an arrow, the epitome of control.

Serena knew it to be a polished façade, but at the moment just the sight of her togetherness was upsetting, _too much_ , because she wore her heart on her sleeve and right now it was one of _chaos_.

A train wreck waiting to happen, _currently happening_.

The word _carnage_ came to mind and she looked up, staring Bernie right in the eye. The woman flinched under her gaze as if cut by the sharp edges of her thoughts.

" _How dare you_."

“I…” She broke eye contact, just as expected, just as Serena knew she eventually would. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all very good.” Her voice was velvet, but a rose is not without her thorns. “But I am afraid an apology still hurts when pressed to tender skin. A slap is still a slap, no matter if it was given by mistake or with no intention of causing pain.”

"I know, I..."

“No, you don’t.” Serena took a large sip, _the_ sip she had expected would have made her spill. “I understand, Bernie, I do. But at the end of the day I’m just human.” She considered pouring herself another, but decided against it.

“You didn’t just walk out on a possible relationship; you walked out on a friendship, on a companionship, on… _everything_.” She looked down at her now empty glass and almost laughed at how alike they were at this very instant. One could see, taste, smell, _feel_ , that there had been wine, that there had been _fullness_ … but one could also tell that the remnants were fading and that eventually its existence would be but a memory, so faded and light it could have been nothing but a dream.

“You didn’t even call, Bernie.” She whispered as her fingertips travelled the rim of the emptiness that had threatened to drown her but that had yet to deliver. “Mind you, I wouldn’t have picked up the first time, perhaps not even the first hundred times, but you didn’t even try.”

_You are not going to cry_ , _Serena Campbell._

"You ceased to exist." She said, her eyes coming up to meet Bernie’s as if still in doubt as to whether she was truly real. “And now I am grieving, now _I_ need time and space because I thought you dead.”

_Ashes on her tongue_.

"Please, walk away."

Bernie swallowed hard, her composure falling apart as a single tear exposed, _unlocked_ , a path that would require cementing before welcoming steps that would lead towards sunsets of warmth.

Serena grabbed her hand as Bernie walked past her.

“I want to come back for you.” She added with a reassuring squeeze of her hand.

“I will wait.”

A kiss on a palm.

Beginnings. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me. I just _had_ to.


End file.
